Two Wishes
by Caribous
Summary: [Neglected Shrine 04] Probably the darkest part of this rather dark series. Two sets of wishes made by Nico and Maki at the neglected shrine, and what happened after that. This is not the full extent of my birthday present for Nico, never fear!
1. Nico Loves Maki

**Nico Loves Maki**

 **Summary:**

While out walking together, Nico and Maki discover a neglected shrine.  
Anxious about the possibility of parting after graduation, Maki wishes  
to make the most of what time together they can share. Nico resolves  
to be the best girlfriend she can possibly be. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

* * *

Nico woke up in pain, which was a surprise. Not the pain, the waking up part.

It didn't feel like she was in a hospital. When she opened her eyes, she realized she must be still dreaming. She hoped. The sky was smokey browns and reds, as was the barren landscape. She, herself, was lying on hard, baked ground. The dream didn't seem to go away. She saw a faint shadow fall on her. She looked in the direction it came from, and there was her reason for not existing.

Nico couldn't really even remember the last time she'd been exactly happy, but the last straw had definitely been when she found out the latest reason Maki never answered her messages, even to mock them, was that she was inhabiting a drawer in the city morgue. But there she was, in the flesh. Or something like that. Looking at Nico with that amused look she'd gotten so sadly familiar with.

 **"You got it, Nico-chan,** " she said. There was something very dark and supernatural about her voice now.

"M-M-maki-chan!" Nico couldn't help yelling.

" **N-N-N-Nico no more!"** was the response, in a fake-sweet sing-song voice. " **Welcome to hell, honey-y*. Better get used to it."**

Since Nico knew she'd wake up any time now, she wondered why in her dream she'd abandoned her normal attitude towards Maki, which had been to be completely self-denying, while Maki was alive. Maybe, on top of everything else, she was angry at Maki for not caring if she finally overdosed or not.

* * *

A day of confused, frightened, increasingly frantic thoughts later, not daring to move from her lying position, Nico realized it didn't matter if she was dreaming; whatever it was wasn't going away.

Maki had come back, and with bread and water, to boot. Which was ... good. Nico had never in her life felt this hungry and thirsty. When Maki got closer to her, she suddenly tossed the bread to the ground, and ground it in with her foot. Then she watered the mess with all of the water in the bottle she'd been carrying, and threw the vessel overhand. It arced out over a cliff and Nico could hear it smash on the way down.

"M-m-m-Maki-chan!" Unfortunately, Nico was again reduced to incoherence.

" **N-N-N-Nico!"** Maki smirked. **"Doing you a favor, honey."**

Nico must have made a confused face. Or an angry one. Or both.

 **"You're oh so hungry and thirsty, right? Of course you are,"** Maki said, nodding her head and shrugging.

 **"But the water and bread here? They just make it worse. Much worse. And .. WE"** Maki pointed to herself, then Nico. **"Don't need to eat or drink, anyway. Or sleep. Or go to the bathroom. All of that is for the live ones. And you're as dead as it gets, Nico-chan."**

Nico must have still looked confused.

" **Look. Ignore it. Ignore it long enough and it's just like being on a diet and dehydrated. Nothing you can't bear."**

To take her mind off the pain and the hunger and the thirst, Nico's mind wandered to the big "why" that had filled her thoughts as she lay back and everything faded to black.

"Why? Why did you .. why did you hate me so much? What did I ever do but love you, Maki? What did I ever do to you, ever?" If they didn't need to drink, Nico wondered where tears came from here.

 **"Ah, same old Nico-chan. That's just what the doctors' daughter ordered,** " said Maki with a laugh. It couldn't be called a nice laugh, though it wasn't a cartoon villain laugh, either. It had a lot of bitterness and cruelty.

" **Nico, honey, you mean the note, right? The one for you to read once I was dead? Blablabla, I never loved you, you were always a hateful, ugly, stupid, worthless drag on my time ... let's see .. what else did I say ... oh, you were lucky I took pity on you but you took advantage of it like the dumb little loser parasite you've always been. That letter was a lot of fun."**

She looked at Nico with genuine enthusiasm. " **Remember when I said the only people that would ever possibly want to f_ you were old, fat lolicons? And that that was why you always missed your dead father so much, because you were horny and ugly and missed his d_? That part made Anju and Erena laugh so hard ... so hard Anju wet herself."**

Maybe this was the afterlife hell of confusion. Maybe, because Nico didn't understand a word Maki was saying. Of course, she remembered every hateful, painful, soul-destroying word. But Maki was acting like it was a game. Like it was fun. Why would Nico have ever been devoted to someone who could do that? But as she had the thought, it was followed quickly by another one. Regardless, she had been. She still was. Loving Maki wasn't something you could walk away from, if you were Nico. She thought she heard Maki mumble something, like **"Didn't make the sex bad, though, we were so high."**

But then Maki looked her in the eye. " **The why should be obvious, but I bet it isn't. The point of the letter was to make you _kill yourself,_ Nico. Sheesh. Connect the dots, for once! And it worked, obviously."**

"W-Why ..." Nico began.

 **"I figured hell would be boring, and it is. So if you get to bring just one album, or one pet, or one stuffed animal, you make it your favorite, right? So I decided, 'let's have my favorite chew toy. Her reactions are so cute and hilarious when she's being humiliated, after all.' "**

 **"Not that,"** Maki continued, holding up a finger for emphasis, **"I didn't think of bringing my favorite lover, instead. But it's harder to trick a tough girl like her into dying when you're strung out on heroin and opiate pills than it is a vulnerable and gullible waif with her head already half in the noose. And I guessed the Powers That Be wouldn't let me and Anju f_ the eons away. Plus, that gets old once you've had your thousandth sex partner, to be honest."**

Despite herself, Nico had to ask. "Thousandth? You mean, here in ... in ... wherever this is?"

 **"Nico-chan, does this place look like it has a single's spot? No, I obviously mean while alive, idiot. I beat Anju and Erena to 1000 by only a month. I'm just hotter than them, so I had an advantage."** With that she twirled her hair, but in a completely fake and self-satisfied way.

"But .. but .. Nico was ... was the first?"

 **"Well, yeah, technically. Back when I had no idea what a good lover looked like. Congratulations on acquiring my virtue, Nico-chan - if you use an electron microscope, you might even locate it. Or maybe a telescope, it's so far gone. Let's make a joke in English: it's in Uranus!"**

Nico was crying again.

 **"Oh, she's crying again. This is wonderful. Hey, Nico, did you know you were the most boring person to f_ in all of µ's?"**

Nico looked up. It was obvious she was shocked by the news that Maki had slept with all the other girls (as well as the cut about her being Maki's least favorite).

 **"Oh, come on, Nico! I had every possible kind of sex with about 140 times that many girls and guys, why would I leave them out? They aren't that ugly and boring. Heck, I wouldn't even leave you out of the bottom three-fourths of a percent. That would hardly be school spirit, would it? By the way, Mika, Fumiko and Hideko were excellent. That's because they insisted on always having a foursome. Eventually I learned that a threesome is better than a pair, a foursome is even better, and an orgy is the best. But ..."** She looked around.

She looked back at Nico with a wink. " **I guess that bit of wisdom is going to go to waste here."** And from the look in her eye, he had something else evil to add.

Sure enough: " **You wouldn't know about the orgies, come to think of it. After all, you slept through all the ones you went to."** And that made no sense, either.

"Ni ... Nico has never been to any orgy and Nico would never ..."

 **"Well, they're not called that, Nico. Idiot! They're called parties. Remember going to parties with me? We both knew you were a lightweight drinker, right?"**

Nico, for a reason she couldn't quite pin down, had a cold feeling.

 **"Nico, I'll get you a drink, what are you having?"** Maki said in a lovey dovey voice.

 **"Maki, this tastes funny ..."** she said in a good, if cruel, imitation of Nico's voice.

 **"Well, drink it down and I'll have them make the next one better, okay, honey?"**

 **"And then, Nico being a lightweight, she falls asleep, and wakes up at home. Her beloved Maki must have got her there somehow. And Nico is sore all over, but Maki tells her it's because she slept wrong at the party again, and Nico always believes her beloved Maki-chan."** She looked at Nico like she was a bug.

 **"Of course, the guys that were having their way with a cute unconscious girl we told everyone was in middle school didn't mind carrying her to the car, so we could continue everything at my place. So I have to say, getting poor sleepy Nico home wasn't a big sacrifice. The truth is, Nico, it wasn't only the old, bald, fat lolicons that wanted you, they just paid the most for the privilege."**

 **"Of course …"** She added thoughtfully, " **They paid a lot more for your siblings, obviously."**

Nico stared at her, uncomprehendingly. " **After you were hospitalized, we got your mom lured out on a pretext. We lost track of her somewhere in Central Europe, but I have to assume she's earning her keep, if she's still alive, I mean. Pimping out your siblings was lucrative - goodness yes - but it was too much like work for me, Nico. We basically killed time until we got the right buyers. Then I had enough money to keep me high and living in luxury for what turned out to be the rest of my life."**

Finally Nico had it together enough to protest. "But I … I … always … "

 **"L-l-l-loved Maki!"** Maki said, sneeringly. **"Yes, how many times did everyone say that. Nico Loves Maki. Nico Loves Maki. True, but beside the point."**

"How … when …" Nico couldn't formulate a proper question, but it was as if Maki could read her mind.

 **"Finally, she arrives at a question I don't mind answering,"** Maki said. Apparently the look of contempt she was giving Nico was a permanent fixture. " **Remember our shrine visit, honey-y-y?"**

Maybe Nico should learn to enjoy these cold feelings. They were the only ones she could get from now on.

 **"I bet,"** Maki said, sticking the tip of her tongue out of the side of her mouth, **"You wished for something like 'I want to be a better girlfriend! I want to love Maki more each day!"**

Bingo. If they hadn't been so embarrassed, so afraid of being seen and teased by Nozomi, they would have, of course, been at her shrine. But after doing hatsumode there, They had gone to a shrine they'd noticed on the way, located nearby. It was completely run down, almost abandoned, but in their infatuated state that had made it seem more romantic.

 **"You know, before I OD-ed, I had it worked out with A-RISE to have your urn repository say 'Yazawa Nico - she was a lousy f_' in advance for when you finally did the right thing. But those other bitches in Mu's were thwarting it. According to Tsubasa, who can be a real buzz-kill, by the way, they abandoned their efforts and your actual inscription was going to be 'Nico Loved Maki.' Well, at least they acknowledged your master, Yazawa Hachikou. Mine says "F_ you! I had a way better time than you'll EVER have!" That's a hint."**

A … hint? Nico didn't get it.

 **"Poor, innocent, stupid Maki was stressing about you graduating, us splitting up, her medical education, your idol obsession. So she just wished to enjoy your time together, whatever you had, to the maximum.** "

 **"But that girl,"** and Maki winked at Nico, " **didn't understand what a real maximum is. So, at first, being new to sex, she thought all the f_ing we did was wonderful. All the time with your loving family. Holding hands on the way to school! Ooh, daring!"**

 **"But that,** " she continued, **"Isn't miles within what the maximum enjoyment of our relationship turned out to be. I knew from the start I wanted to be in charge. On top. That that made it much hotter. But after a while, how docile you were just became boring. Sex became boring. You became the most boring of all. So I took two different approaches. First, I started cheating on you at every opportunity. That was wonderful fun, and it made everything naughty and hot again. And I started trying to make you do things you really didn't want to. So, breaking your will over and over again - also hot. But eventually you were like a stuffed toy I had outgrown. That's when I started making sure you found out about the cheating. Your tears were a real source of pleasure, I can tell you that much."**

That did explain a lot, Nico thought. The ropes tied far too tight. The biting that broke the flesh and once even left a small scar. And the way she stopped hiding her cheating. The humiliation - eventually that was a standard part.

" **And of course, I looked at how I could leverage your stupid, pet-like devotion to me to have a good time. Well, that worked out awfully well. And I got Erena and Anju to form a wild-girl gang with me. Tsubasa was pissed, but to appease her we whored out ourselves - and you, of course, Sleeping Beauty - to a few producers and got A-RISE and Tsubasa an inside line on some great venues and opportunities. After that she was see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil. Problem solved."**

Problem solved? It all sounded like a problem to Nico.

"Maki-chan was not like this all along. Nico's heart would have known."

 **"Nico's heart is even stupider than Nico, frankly,"** Maki said, laughing. **"But you're right, everything changed after our shrine visit. You changed, I changed. It's almost enough to make you superstitious. Oh, wait, here we are in the afterlife. Maybe I mean, it's almost enough to clue you in on how reality really works."**

For the first time ever, Maki looked uncertain. **"I'm not stupid, contrariwise. The Powers That Be wouldn't have allowed you to be here with me for no reason. And the hunger and thirst and heat and so on aside, I've had it suspiciously easy. You're probably here because you let your passion for one person make you neglect every other thing and person you cared about, is my guess. Why I'm here is trivial. But at some point, the other shoe is going to drop. It could be you'll only be here long enough to make me suffer remorse … go back to the weakling I was … and really suffer ..."** And throw the bread and water out instead of gloating after you ate and drank it, she thought.

Maki clapped her hand over her mouth. **"Oh s_t! It's already starting. I would never say that in my right mind. I might have even given you hope!"** She squared her shoulders. " **If that's what's happening, I promise I'll be true to my wish and enjoy myself with you as long as I can, I warn you.** " She started to approach Nico, that girl could see out of the corner of her eye. She was still too exhausted and shocked to bother to move.

Nico, meanwhile, had been tormented by the idea that she'd abandoned her dreams and neglected her beloved family, who depended on her, for this sickening travesty of a love relationship. She was looking for something - anything - to cling to to keep a toehold in the realm of sanity.

What was the one thing she knew for sure? It was a sad realization.

"Still … still …" she said. The gesture she made, without lifting her head, was a dull parody of her Nico-nico-nii finger hooks. "Nico loves Maki."

 **"Of course you do, honey,"** Maki said with an unreadable expression, " **and that's your problem."**

* * *

 **AN: Japanese has VERY few pet names. What Maki is actually saying is things like "A - na - ta" etc.**


	2. Closer

**Closer**

Young love was wonderful. So wonderful, it made you just that little bit afraid of losing it someday. Or maybe Yazawa Nico was just weird. She'd had that feeling ever since she and Maki had discovered a neglected shrine not that far from Nozomi's temple shrine.

On an impulse, they'd tossed a 500 yen coin each into the old rotting collection box and each written a wish and pinned it up. Something about the noise it made when Maki tossed her coin in had made Nico shake the box, a bit sacrilegiously, and it startled her that it sounded and felt empty. She hoped that wouldn't jinx her wish.

Later that day they couldn't keep their wishes to themselves - another potential jinx. They'd both made the exact same wish - to be closer to the other. That was uplifting and positive enough. Nico didn't know where the feeling came from, but she was convinced somehow that she had a tendency to lose herself in love and turn a blind eye to potential conflicts that needed to be worked out to make the love more real. And would bring them really, authentically closer, to boot.

* * *

Being with Nico had made all her wildest fantasies of love come true, Nishikino Maki thought. So why did she have such misgivings. Mostly about herself, too. Somehow, she'd become convinced, at a level below rationality, that she had too great a tendency to simply enjoy the high from being in love and not pay attention to Nico's needs. Well, if that was the case, she resolved to watch herself and always put Nico's feelings and needs on the same level as hers. That was the key, she decided, to having your love grow closer after the initial high wore off.

Come to think of it, hadn't this started when they made that shrine wish? In retrospect, she wasn't sure that had been a wise thing to do. It seemed very romantic at the time, but … Anyway, she searched her feelings. It was comforting. She still felt as amazed and in love as ever. And her desire to be closer to Nico every day was unabated.

* * *

They had to admit their relationship the next day in the Idol Research Club room. The way they couldn't keep their eyes off each other defied glib explanations. It was uncanny, how they'd both lost all restraint. Fortunately, everyone else in Mu's approved, and most said "About time you two admitted it!"

It was only after they sat next to each other, actually touching, that either of them could concentrate on what they were there for. They both pouted when they weren't paired up for exercise. There was no one who was particularly used to pairing up with Nico, but Rin and Hanayo were a little bit offended. Eventually they seemed to realize it wasn't personal. That said, everyone but Nico and Maki in Mu's felt a twinge of worry about how excessively couple-y they were. And so quickly, too.

The next day, they came to school holding hands. "How bold, you two!" Nozomi teased, as the rest of Mu's met them at the school gate.

"It's not like it looks!" Nico said, stammering a bit.

Maki backed her up. "This may sound stupid, but our hands literally came out of our pockets and joined, and we can't let go."

They even invited the Mu's girls to separate them. Rin and Nozomi rose to the challenge, and couldn't. But, of course, they could just be playing around and gripping each other's hands with all their might. Nozomi had an idea. She winked at Rin over Nico's shoulder. Rin got the gist of it right away. She was no Nozomi, but …

"Sorry, Maki-chan," Rin said, sheepishly. With that, she started tickling Maki unmercifully. Like many easily embarrassed girls, Maki was actually very ticklish. Meanwhile, Nozomi was, of course, giving Nico-Nico an extreme _washi-washi._ Both girls collapsed to their knees, then to a sitting posture, but their hands never parted.

"STOP IT!" Nico yelled, finally. "Look, we'll try to help you." And with that, Maki and Nico joined in Rin and Nozomi's efforts to pull them apart. Several feet apart, once the initial handclasp was broken.

And that's when things took a surreal turn, even for the spiritual girl of Mu's.

Nico and Maki's bodies were literally dragged across the ground until their hands joined again. Nozomi looked over at Rin. Rin looked back at Nozomi. There were tears in Rin's eyes, and something else that looked like fear and the beginnings of panic.

* * *

After a consultation with Headmistress Minami and all of Nico's and Maki's teachers, it was agreed that the two could attend each other's classes - Nico's more than Maki's, as it was judged that the first-year needed less class time to keep her grades up. They always sat in adjoining chairs at the same shared desk, which they'd learned to organize in each classroom so they could hold what both Nico and Maki might need. It went without saying they always went to the bathroom together, let alone having lunch together. Only when they were practicing or performing did whatever supernatural force was at work seem to lengthen the leash between them. Umi deliberately choreographed amazing parallel maneuvers for the two. They were always perfectly in synch, without even looking, no matter how far apart on stage or the roof they were.

It became a subtle addition to the overall motif of Mu's. And, of course, NicoMaki shippers went crazy. Especially when they saw how after each song Nico and Maki flew to each other to hold hands. And sometimes even wrap their arms around each other's waists.

As for the families? The Nishikinos were quietly paying for scientific and even paranormal research, but the happening was deeply embarrassing for them. So they didn't squawk when Maki moved in to Nico's room. Nico brought half the contents of her room to the school, and gave Hanayo her pick. The rest she quietly sold off (with Maki at her side, of course) and in that way she was able to pay Mu's expenses to an event they'd been invited to perform at in another city far from Tokyo, that they'd decided not to accept due to the inconvenience and costs. She got a great deal after Hanayo got her pick selling the rest to the school idol merchandise shop. She dutifully autographed everything she was asked to, and Maki even joined in on a few items they'd agreed didn't have real sentimental value for the couple. To seal the deal, they took a _purikura_ of them looking in each other's eyes and both of them signed it.

Nico and Maki split the space in Nico's room equally. Maki, who was very diligent, also learned how to cook and do laundry. It was a real struggle not to hold hands, and they had to pay attention in order not to rejoin them. So quite often Nico would do something with her left hand while Maki helped with her right hand. Maki's diligence in studying helped Nico bring her grades up almost as high as Maki's. Nico's siblings loved having Maki there, and the explanation that they were together like a mommy and daddy didn't phase them one bit. And a good thing, as sleeping side by side would have been unbearable for the couple if they could never release all the sexual tension they felt.

As crazy and inconvenient as things were, they nonetheless settled into something approaching a normal routine.

* * *

But their fellow students, especially friends like Hideko, Fumiko and Mika, and of course the other people in Mu's, noticed a rather disturbing trait. Traits.

Quite often, when they addressed a question to Maki, Nico answered it. And vice versa. Worse, sometimes the answer seemed almost psychic, it would be so apropos to the question.

At first they chided whoever answered, but it became clear it was an unconscious thing. And more and more, when "NicoMaki" wanted something, one of them would be a spokes-girl for the pair.

They actually hardly talked at all. Maki, writing her notes, would write a short message and draw Nico's eyes to it. She'd usually nod or shake her head, or sometimes write below it. It almost felt like they'd forgotten they could, or needed to, speak.

But none of that prepared them for what was ahead.

* * *

One day, Nico and Maki didn't separate at all for practice. "We can't!" Nico said. Maki nodded mutely.

To their utter horror, they saw that their hands weren't just joined. They were _fused_. Nico and Maki had become Siamese twins.

* * *

Papa Nishikino wanted them to get immediate surgery. But the psychic he'd consulted out of desperation told him he'd just be mutilating the girls and delaying the inevitable. The Nishikinos paid to have a facsimile of a Greek manuscript made and translated it. It involved a couple who had been so close they grew together. Like most myths, it seemed pretty straightforwardly metaphorical. But it was with a sinking feeling that they read that, according to the historian, the village where it had occurred still had people living there who remembered the couple, saw them grow together, and reported that eventually they left the village, not needing anyone else to be complete.

Half the Otonokizaka students were spooked by the phenomenon. The other half gushed over how romantic it was. The two sides couldn't understand each other.

* * *

The fusion hadn't progressed beyond the hands when the Mu's girls noticed yet another disturbing change. Now, when Nico or Maki answered to each other's names, there wasn't even a flicker of recognition that they even had different names.

Eventually, they took to answering any statements or questions directed towards them in unison. They laughed more than either had in the past, but it was an unsettling, somewhat high-pitched laugh. Nico grew an inch or two, Maki shrunk the same amount. Nico's hair grew red highlights. So did Maki's eyes.

Hanayo got up her courage once and asked if they could tell who was who anymore. She got another chilling laugh in response. The one you could barely tell had been Nico said, "Oh, just call us Mako!"

"No, no!" said the other one. "Nikki! Definitely Nikki!"

"You are too kind, Mako-chan!" the former Nico said, snickering.

"I insist, Nikki-chan!" the former Maki said, bowing deeply and gracefully (especially considering the fused hands).

Then in unison, they said, "Nico, Maki Nikki, Mako … just call us whatever you want and one of us will answer. Or both. It amounts to the same thing, anyway."

That was followed by the chilling, unearthly laughter in unison. Hanayo resolved to never ask them about any of this again. That night, she found it impossible to sleep, and phoned Rin late at night. That girl came over on her bicycle and spent the night. Hanayo was shaking for over an hour before she drifted off in Rin's arms.

* * *

As if that encounter had been a catalyst, the next week rapidly finished the fusing of the two girls into one girl. Just like that, Mu's was eight

Nico's mother brought the remaining girl to the Nishikino Mansion. When questioned, the fused girl said she considered all three of them her parents. Seemingly, they had all of the memories of both girls, which got confusing once you reached the era after they'd met for the first time.

You couldn't say the resulting girl - they very reluctantly went with the Nikki suggestion - wasn't both beautiful like Maki and cute like Nico. She was, actually, dazzling. The parents had withdrawn Nico and Maki from school and put Nikki in as a first-year.

She assured them she was still communing with the two parts of herself, still "growing closer." What that could mean now escaped them.

And all three parents thought that might be a good thing.

* * *

Nikki proved to be the strongest member of Mu's now. While she didn't quite weigh as much as Nico and Maki had separately, nonetheless, if you grabbed ahold of her, you had to describe the sensation this way: her body was eerily dense. Just as they'd been forced to leverage Nico and Maki's eerie synchronicity earlier, they leveraged her weight and strength in maneuvers where Nikki would hold up to three Mu's girls on her shoulders in a diamond formation. Or swing them through the air or toss them up and catch them.

Rin and Hanayo and Nozomi, who had become the unofficial chroniclers of Nikki, were the only ones who noticed yet another change. Nikki was growing shorter, but still weighed the same amount. The situation had not yet exhausted its horrors, and finally they realized what "still getting closer" meant.

They had two more lives before the now two-foot-high Nikki looked too much like a toddler to be a credible school idol. That girl took initiative for the first time in months, and asked them all to help with a "NicoMaki Farewell Party" at the location of the neglected shrine "where everything started for me .. us … whatever …" they said, not leaving out the unearthly laughter.

At the combined girl's request, they invited everyone in Mu's and A-RISE and their families. Fumiko, Hideko and Mika, too, of course. The Mu's girls had made it as festive as they could, but of course the overall mood was somber.

"We aren't going anywhere, don't get us wrong," that girl announced. "But this is where we'll dwell from now on. We don't have any human needs left - we can survive merely on love. And we're really looking forward to getting closer, faster. It feels like the energy of this place will help a lot."

The attendees kept brave smiles on their faces until they got away from the shrine. Then the tears came.

NicoMaki's last meal was a sweet tomato cake.

* * *

Within a week you couldn't see Nikki. You could still hear her clearly, though "sense" was the word Nozomi used, and it was undoubtedly apt. By that point, Nikki had sunk into the ground below the shrine, and that was where the "voice" of Nikki came from. Every day it seemed farther and farther away. Umi and Eli had analyzed the situation. Within a month, NicoMaki would have shrunk to a size where they would form an infinitesimally small black hole. At that point, they would be withdrawn behind an event horizon. Together forever, with no means of communicating with the rest of the world. Not that they would care. They laughed when presented with the notion, and claimed that their love would still shine out and be sensed regardless of any barriers to it.

New couples at Otonokizaka started a fad of coming to where NicoMaki had disappeared to ask them to bless their relationships. When she found out about that, Nozomi acted. Over a weekend, the neglected shrine was bulldozed, and a dozen Shinto and Buddhist priests (and three Catholic priests just to be on the safe side) came and cleansed it. The cost of the bulldozer, and of a monument that showed Nico and Maki holding each other and looking into each other's eyes (and likely just about to share a kiss) placed over their location, was paid for by the Nishikinos. They had their own score to settle with the shrine, but didn't want their daughter to be forgotten.

When Honoka and Eli found out Yukiho and Alisa planned to make a pilgrimage there, they were both horrified, and forbid it.

But:

"Ah, no chance, onee-san. I mean, of us becoming like them. It's even hard to share a bed with her!" Alisa said, adding in a stage whisper, "She snores!"

"Well, she steals the covers, so that noise is probably me sneezing from the cold i am going to get," Yukiho responded.

That did the opposite of what they probably intended. Honoka and Eli both remembered how incompatible the bickering tsundere couple had seemed.

At that, Alisa addressed them more seriously than she usually did.

"Look, we can be apart. Yukiho wants to be a part-time idol and help out with the shop. I want to be full time. She wants to sing, I want to dance. We can be apart. We can even break up and still be friends."

"But," added Yukiho, "a little help never hurts."

"I give Yukiho space and she gives me space. I have friends that are just my friends. I have a life that doesn't revolve around her."

"And that's one reason I love her," Yukiho added. "Same here," said Alisa.

Nozomi had had the men renovating the shrine restore a sill to put wishes up and a box to collect yen for what had become a NicoMaki shrine.

"What did you both wish for," Honoka wondered suddenly.

"To be CLOSER!" they said in unison. At the looks on their older sister's faces, they both collapsed in laughter.

"Actually," Yukiho said, "we really did make the same wish. But there's no way I am going to tell _you_."

Meanwhile, Alisa whispered something in Eli's ear that had her choking with laughter. Alisa looked a little vexed. Yukiho looked resigned. She leaned over to Honoka. "Listen," she said. "If you don't want us to be in the papers for sistercide, this is a secret. … umm … Arisa really likes a certain area of a girl's body, so … we both wished for mine to … "

"Bigger?" Honoka asked.

Yukiho was bright red, but nodded.

"I think I like that a lot better than 'closer' nowadays," was all Honoka replied.

* * *

 **NOTES**

One of the conceits of this series, The Neglected Shrine, is that after one wish has been made, after the wishers have gone down one track, so to speak, back in time when they are first encountering the shrine, they have a vague sense of what happened/will happen, and usually some regrets. The wishes in "Closer" are a direct response to the consequences of the wishes in "Nico Loves Maki."


End file.
